While checking to see which of today’s speeches from the Conservative Party confeence had been posted on YouTube, I typed ‘tory party conference speech 2009’ into the search box.
As you'll see HERE, in the list of 22 videos on the first page of its response, eighteen were from the UKIP conference, one was of Gordon Brown, one of Nick Griffin (BNP) and one was a clip of Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics show.
The only Tory was chairman Eric Pickles with a trailer to the conference featuring clips from speeches by Margaret Thatcher.
Does this mean that political bias against the Conservatives and in favour of UKIP is built into way the YouTube search box works, or does it just reflect the number of times words like ‘tory’, ‘party’, ‘conference’ and ‘speech’ were mentioned by UKIP speakers at their conference?
Are there any geeks out there who can explain what it all means?
The barmy Tory backdrop disappears & reappears
The speaker a few moments ago at the Tory Party conference was the shadow minister for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt MP, who exposed something the designers of the barmy backdrop hadn't taken into account.
Hunt opted for the management guru style of delivery - i.e. walking about the platform pretending not to have a script (for more on which see HERE)
As a result, the leafy suburban backdrop kept disappearing as he walked from side to side, making the whole thing seem even barmier than yesterday - especially when camera angle changes revealed a row of delegates sitting on white armchairs suspended in the trees behind him.
Hunt opted for the management guru style of delivery - i.e. walking about the platform pretending not to have a script (for more on which see HERE)
As a result, the leafy suburban backdrop kept disappearing as he walked from side to side, making the whole thing seem even barmier than yesterday - especially when camera angle changes revealed a row of delegates sitting on white armchairs suspended in the trees behind him.
What a peculiar Tory conference backdrop
The staging of Conservative Party conferences was transformed under Margaret Thatcher with the help of Harvey Thomas, who'd previously been involved in organising Billy Graham's crusades to the UK.
One innovation, later copied by other parties, was to seat other delegates out of sight so that they couldn't be seen behind the speaker. This had the advantage of reducing potential distractions and of preventing the mass audience from being able to monitor how colleagues were reacting to a speech
P.S. Later on in the afternoon when it was Ken Clarke's turn, the backdrop had moved backwards again, closer to where it had been when William Hague was speaking. Is it symbolising some sort of pecking order we don't know about, is it random or will all be revealed by the end of the conference?
One innovation, later copied by other parties, was to seat other delegates out of sight so that they couldn't be seen behind the speaker. This had the advantage of reducing potential distractions and of preventing the mass audience from being able to monitor how colleagues were reacting to a speech
Before Labour followed suit, for example, sitting behind Neil Kinnock during his leader's speech were Dennis Skinner and Alice Mahon, chatting and shaking their heads as some of the things he was saying.
Then there as the classic Newsnight interview in which Peter Snow took Frances Pym to task for not applauding in the right places and/or vigorously enough (as can be seen HERE).
This year's Tory conference managers have come up with an innovation that I don't understand and have yet to hear explained. Yesterday, William Hague got up to speak in front of an anonymous townscape. Manchester? A typical Tory suburb? Middle England? Or just what is it supposed to symbolise?
Whatever the answer, it certainly got me (and probably anyone else who was watching too) wondering what they're trying to tell us - thereby distracting us from concentrating as closely as we should have been doing on what he was actually saying (which could, I suppose, be the whole point of it).
Today, when George Osborne appeared, the same background seemed to have moved in closer behind the podium, which has got me wondering whether, by the time David Cameron gives his leader's speech on Thursday, we'll see him perched on the roof of one of the houses.
This year's Tory conference managers have come up with an innovation that I don't understand and have yet to hear explained. Yesterday, William Hague got up to speak in front of an anonymous townscape. Manchester? A typical Tory suburb? Middle England? Or just what is it supposed to symbolise?
Whatever the answer, it certainly got me (and probably anyone else who was watching too) wondering what they're trying to tell us - thereby distracting us from concentrating as closely as we should have been doing on what he was actually saying (which could, I suppose, be the whole point of it).
Today, when George Osborne appeared, the same background seemed to have moved in closer behind the podium, which has got me wondering whether, by the time David Cameron gives his leader's speech on Thursday, we'll see him perched on the roof of one of the houses.
P.S. Later on in the afternoon when it was Ken Clarke's turn, the backdrop had moved backwards again, closer to where it had been when William Hague was speaking. Is it symbolising some sort of pecking order we don't know about, is it random or will all be revealed by the end of the conference?
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